Hair covering



E. BRODSKY HAIR COVERING June 30, 1964 Filed June 28, 1962 I NVENTOR ill/NE fifiapskr dfrdiA/'y United States Paten 3,138,801 HAIR COVERING Elaine Brodsky, 125 W. 76th St., New York, NY. Filed June 28, 1962, Ser. N 0. 206,058 1 Claim. (Cl. 2-174) This invention relates to hair covering caps for protecting a wearers hair from water while showering or bathing, and from cosmetics or medicaments when the latter are being applied to the wearers face.

Hair coverings of various constructions and designs have been provided to protect the hair of a wearer against contact with Water or other materials being applied to the face or body. Protection against water has been necessary to avoid damaging the set of hair in elaborate hairdos, and where wetting of the hair may be harmful to health. Likewise, where cosmetics or medicaments are applied to the face or body, it is desirable to protect the hair against contamination with the applied material.

Hair covers heretofore available have employed flexible, water-impervious crown portions having a peripheral rim surrounding an opening for placing the cover over the hair and ears of the wearer, and normally have been caused to fit snugly around the head, either by a tie-member or by an elastic, rubbery member, which draws the rim of the opening around the head.

Each of these means for drawing the peripheral rim of the opening of the hair cover around the head have disadvantages. The tie-member requires undesirable manipulation, and tends to provide too tight a fit in some areas and insufficient snugness in others, due to the irregular contour of the head below the hairline. The elastic members have tended to fail in use and it has been difiicult to provide elastic bands which do not undergo substantial changes in elasticity upon ageing. Furthermore, extension of elastic bands to the wide opening required for ease in placing the cover over the hair involves substantial force.

It is an object of this invention to provide a means for effecting a snug, uniform fit of the peripheral rim of the opening of a hair cover to the head of the wearer.

It is another object to provide such a means which is self-adjusting to the irregularities in the contours of a wearers head, and is easily extensible to more than double head diameter for easy placement over the head.

It is yet another object to provide such a means which does not undergo noticeable changes on ageing, and is efficiently reusable many times.

These and other objects are achieved in the hair covering cap of the invention, which comprises a flexible, waterimpervious crown portion for positioning around the hair of the wearer, and an expandable and contractable opening for receiving therethrough the hair of the wearer, in which the means employed for expansion and contraction of the opening is a continuous coil spring, which in repose is of lesser diameter than the head in the area in which the opening is to fit in use, contained in a pocket adjacent the peripheral rim of the opening. The cap preferably will be formed from a circular disk of flexible, water-impervious film material, drawn together at its periphery by the continuous coil spring to form the cap. The spring, by its nature can be stretched easily to more than double its rest diameter, thus rendering placement of the cap over the hair a simple matter.

The continuous coil spring advantageously will be free to move within the pocket adjacent the rim of the opening which will be formed, for example, by hemming the rim of the opening up over the spring, or by placing a separate piece of water-impermeable film over the spring and cover adjacent the rim, affixing this additional piece of material to cover above and below the spring, thereby enclosing it. By forming the pocket while the opening and spring are Patented June 30, 19.64

stretched to the largest opening to be provided for use, the cap will be drawn together at the rim of the opening, thereby forming the cap. I

Reference to FIG. 3, discussed hereinafter, will show that the coil spring at 28 includes a substantially larger number of coils per unit of length than it does at 22, wherein the spring can be expanded and contracted to different extents in localized portions, i.e., it can be stretched to a greater extent in contracted portions 28 than in portions 22. This permits it to adjust itself readily to irregularities in the position of the cap Without effort on the part of the wearer, for example, to fit over or under the ears, high on the forehead, low on the neck and the like. At the same time, it is not subject to ageing as are rubber elastic banding materials, and can be used repeatedly in essentially all environments without undergoing substantial change, while it stretches easily for placement over the head.

The invention will now be described with reference to the attached drawings, in which FIG. 1 is a side view of the cover of the invention in position on a wearer;

FIG. 2 is a bottom view, partly cut away, of the cover of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a view of the continuous coil spring employed in the cover of the invention, shown stretched in localized sections but otherwise contracted.

Referring now to the drawings, in which like reference characters indicate corresponding parts in the several figures, 10 represents the hair of the wearer, which is to be protected, and 12 the cover to be worn for this protection. Cover 12 has a crown portion 14 which fits loosely above the hair, and an opening 16 of less diameter than the crown portion 14 for receiving therethrough the head of the wearer. The opening 16 has a peripheral rim 18, and adjacent thereto a pocket 20 which encloses a normally contracted coil spring 22. In repose, the contracted coil spring gathers the periphery of the cover together into crimped gatherings or plaits 24, which extend when the opening is enlarged by stretching the coil spring, suitably for placing the cover over the head of the wearer.

In use, coil spring 22 pulls the peripheral rim 18 of the cover snugly against the head of the wearer in the desired position. It will stretch locally to conform to irregularities in position and head configuration without affecting the tension on other parts of the opening rim, as shown in FIG. 3, where the spring is stretched locally at 26, and otherwise contracted at 28.

The spring suitably will be formed of stainless steel, though it may be manufactured of other resilient metals or even of semirigid or rigid plastics. In repose it will be of smaller diameter than the average diameter of the head in areas in which it is to surround the head, in order to cause it to hold the rim of the opening of the cover snugly against the head in wear. The cover itself preferably will be formed of thin, flexible, water-impervious sheeting, for example, plasticized polyvinylchloride or other polyvinyl resins, polyethylene, Pliofilm, or natural or synthetic rubbers and the like. The term water-impervious is intended to include water repellent and resistant materials.

The coil spring may be contained in a pocket adjacent the peripheral rim of the cover, simply by turning the edge of the rim back over the spring and seaming it, or by placing a separate piece of material over the spring, and aflixing it to the cover adjacent to the rim above and below the spring. The spring either will be stretched for positioning within the band, and may be inserted in continuous form or be cut and joined together following insertion in the pocket. The cover material normally will be employed in the form of a circular sheet, and the spring inserted with the opening fully open, such that when the spring which is stretched when it is positioned in the pocket, will pull the opening together to a smaller circumference and form creases or plaits. Other obvious means of containing the spring will suggest themselves to the user.

It will be understood that this invention is susceptible to modification in order to adapt it to different usage and conditions, and such modifications are included within the scope of this invention as it is expressed in the appended claim.

Having thus described the invention, What is claimed as new and patentable is:

In a hair covering cap having a flexible, water-impervious crown portion for positioning around the hair of the wearer and an opening for receiving therethrough the head of the wearer, said opening having a rim which is expandable and contractible to more than double its rest diameter, the improvement which comprises providing as the expanding and contracting means in said rim a continuous coil spring in a pocket adjacent to said rim, said coil spring being stretchable Without substantial force to more than A double its rest diameter and the coils of said spring being expanded in localized sections and contracted in other localized sections such that it is stretchable to a greater extent in said contracted sections than it is in said expanded sections, said spring in repose being of lesser diameter than the average diameter of the head of the wearer and being stretchable around its entire length.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,028,826 Miller June 4, 1912 1,097,255 Muhlfeld May 19, 1914 1,140,812 Getler May 25, 1915 1,582,812 Avin Apr. 27, 1926 1,593,524 Axelsen July 20, 1926 1,660,124 Grorn Feb. 21, 1928 1,698,533 Brown Jan. 8, 1929 1,792,681 Doolittle et al. Feb. 17, 1931 FOREIGN PATENTS 149,171 Great Britain Aug. 12, 1920 

